Liberal England

Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year 2014

"Well written, funny and wistful" - Paul Linford; "He is indeed the Lib Dem blogfather" - Stephen Tall"Jonathan Calder holds his end up well in the competitive world of the blogosphere" - New Statesman"A prominent Liberal Democrat blogger" - BBC Radio 4 Today programme"Charming and younger than I expected" - Wartime Housewife

Sunday, March 18, 2018

The most interesting visitor was the Warship D832 'Onslaught'. These class 42 locomotives, known as Warships because that was what they were all named after, ran on British Rail's Western Region between 1958 and 1972.

Senior Labour MPs appalled by Jeremy Corbyn’s performance over the Salisbury poisoning have been in secret talks with the Liberal Democrats and at least one Conservative MP about forming a new political party called Start Again.

Plans for a new pro-European centre party have been openly discussed as part of cross-party discussions on Brexit, according to sources present.

One of those involved in the plotting — a former member of the shadow cabinet — told The Sunday Times that Corbyn’s refusal to blame Russia for the attack would cause MPs to abandon Labour. “This is a watershed moment,” the MP said. “It has caused a number of people to question why we are in this party.”

There are not many names named, but Chuka Umunna, Chris Leslie and Anna Soubry all get a mention.

There would be an irony in calling a new party Start Again unless it turned out to be devoted to something more than maintaining the status quo.

Her article is an interview with Christopher Wylie, and he turns out to have previously offered his services to the Liberal Democrats:

“I wanted to know why the Lib Dems sucked at winning elections when they used to run the country up to the end of the 19th century,” Wylie explains. “And I began looking at consumer and demographic data to see what united Lib Dem voters, because apart from bits of Wales and the Shetlands it’s weird, disparate regions. And what I found is there were no strong correlations. There was no signal in the data.

“And then I came across a paper about how personality traits could be a precursor to political behaviour, and it suddenly made sense. Liberalism is correlated with high openness and low conscientiousness, and when you think of Lib Dems they’re absent-minded professors and hippies. They’re the early adopters… they’re highly open to new ideas. And it just clicked all of a sudden.”

Here was a way for the party to identify potential new voters. The only problem was that the Lib Dems weren’t interested.

“I did this presentation at which I told them they would lose half their 57 seats, and they were like: ‘Why are you so pessimistic?’ They actually lost all but eight of their seats, FYI.”

The death of Jim Bowen this weeks brings to mind the strangest episode in the history of his programme Bullseye.

Let's begin on the Pembrokeshire coast. In 1989 a middle-aged couple, Peter and Gwenda Dixon, were murdered while walking the coastal path. Before they were killed they were forced to disclose the PIN number of their bank card, which was later used to withdraw money.

Their murder attracted much media attention and there was a theory that they had somehow discovered an IRA arms dump, but no one was arrested for it. I recall an article from some years after the crime where a local police officer said "They met a devil on the path."

Someone was convicted for the Dixon's murders, but it was 20 years after they took place. The culprit was a local farmer, John Cooper, who also turned out to have murdered another couple in 1985 after they disturbed him breaking into their house.

At his trial for these four murders a clip from Bullseye was shown, because Cooper had appeared on the show two moths before the Dixons were shot.

And you can see Cooper in the clip above - he had already committed two murders. He is the one Jim Bowen has his arm around as it begins to play.

Cast a sceptical eye on the contestants next time you watch a game show.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

"An immigration-customs check, with armed guards and police dogs; then, a sort of demilitarised zone so the helicopters can see anyone making a run for it, with all trees in the zone removed; followed by another strict immigration-customs check. If you put anything like it in Ireland, I can only imagine the reaction." Nick Tyrone shows that the USA-Canada border is not model for Ireland.

Keith Frankish offers his choice of the best books on the philosophy of mind.

Rob Baker on the British actress Kay Kendall, who died in 1959 aged just 32.

"In that 'ghost village' there was no sign of modern technology, no electric or phone wires, no antenna, no street lights, no garden." In enthusiastic English, Alberto Miatello discusses the Kersey time slip of 1957, in which three naval cadets appear to have seen the village at least 50 years before.

Dodd: "You can tell a joke in Glasgow and people will laugh at it. But in Birmingham, they won't". Parkinson""Why is that?" Dodd: "Well, they can't hear you". From memory, but you get the idea. #KenDodd

Thursday, March 08, 2018

This is West Bay station in Dorset, which marked the end of an extension to the Bridport branch.

It was hoped that West Bay would be developed as a tourist resort - the name was newly coined because it was thought to sound more attractive than Bridport Harbour. But it never really happened and the line closed to passengers in 1930 and to goods in 1962.

But the station was still there, restored and home to a couple of vintage railway carriages when I photographed it from the hill above in 1997.

Two senior Liberal Democrats are making a dramatic return to City of York Council’s executive - six months after being suspended by former council leader David Carr.

Former council deputy leader Keith Aspden and Cllr Nigel Ayre have been re-appointed under a new deal struck between the authority’s coalition partners, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives.

Cllr Aspden will be group leader and executive member for economic development and community engagement, while Cllr Ayre will be executive member for culture, leisure and tourism.

David Carr was recently ousted by his fellow Conservative councillors. He never said what the allegations were against Aspden and Ayre, and the police long ago announced they would not be investigating them, but he was convinced that their suspension was necessary.

It was Carr's suspension of a Conservative councillor for apparently doing no more than conscientiously declaring an interest that led to his downfall. Maybe he just liked suspending people?

The council is currently run by a joint Conservative/Lib Dem administration.